After receiving the approval of Chief Rabbi Dovid Lau Shlita, the Ministerial Committee on Sunday, 22 Tammuz, approved the bill calling for the opening of kevarim to determining if the remains are indeed from Yemenite children as the families of the deceased were told at the time.
The bill is sponsored by MK (Likud) Nurit Koren and she is seeking DNA testing on the remains of the kevarim to make a final determination.
Rav Lau released a letter, which he sent to Koren, in which he explains under the current circumstances, the kevarim may be opened towards determining the true identities of those buried. The Chief Rabbi adds a stipulation, that the exhuming of bodies be minimized to cases of absolute necessity and the work must be carried out with the required kovod hameis.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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The situation is more involved than normally reported. Haaretz this June tells of “Shmuel and Lisa Rettig, Polish Jews who had fled the Nazis” whose son “Zvi was born in 1948 in a displaced persons’ camp in Marseille, France” In Israel, they too were told by doctors that their son had died but never received a death certificate or burial place. The important part is that a few years ago they found (alleged) records showing the burial spot ” in the children’s section of the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv”. For the past few years the family has taken “legal action against the state in order to have the grave opened, followed by DNA tests. The state objects, arguing that there is no justification for doing so after the Interior Ministry recognized the child’s death.”